Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “CNET’s TV Testing Lab: Go Behind the Scenes”.
You ever wonder how Cena test TVs come on in the lab and I’ll show you. So this room is where all that TV testing magic happens. I got five 65-inch TVs lined up next to one another. I sit on this couch and I evaluate their image quality side by side that allows me to compare TV shows, movies and even video games. I also use specialized equipment to measure the screens, so I can check out brightness color and even things like video game input lag all of those tests, measurements and observations. Allow me to help determine the best TV for you now, let’s check out some of that really cool equipment start with one of my favorite pieces of equipment. This is the conical Minolta cs2000 Spectra radiometer it’s about 28 grand.
So it’s no joke. The idea here is to really accurately measure brightness and color, so it measures test patterns like this white panel on the screen here, sends it right to my software and gives me an exact measurement that allows me to determine how the TV ranks against my standard targets. So that kind of objectivity really allows me to compare the TVs on an even playing field and note I always do it in complete darkness, so I can get the purest measurement this little guy is the meridio 6G signal generator it hooks up to the laptop as Well and the laptop controls the test patterns that it sends out, so I can use these test patterns again to measure with my Spectra, radiometer and again determine color, brightness and a bunch of other characteristics. I really like that this sends out signals in 4k HDR 1080p. What have you so the full range of signals to measure? Let me show you one more meter here. This is the iconica Minolta ls100 luminance meter. So the idea of this little guy is you just hold it right up to your eye, and you can measure the light output of pretty much anything. I like to sit on the couch and measure the screens in front of me and just point it at a particular part of the image, compare brightness that way it works really. Well, so you may be wondering how I get the same image on all these TVs at once. The magic happens with this AV Pro connect, 8×8 distribution Matrix.
That’S a fancy way of saying it has eight inputs and eight outputs and it can send any combination to any of the TVs. So I’ve also got a Blu-ray player here right below and a Blu-ray player. Above now you might be saying: Blu-ray super old school yeah, but Blu-ray is the highest quality Source right now that we can use other sources in the stack include a Roku and an Apple TV. So I have access to all the streaming that I need and that nice 4K HDR quality, so the software that I use for measurement is called portrait, displays calman ultimate, it’s professional grade too.
It controls the light meter and it also controls the signal generator puts it. All on a nice graphical format here and I can measure pretty much anything from grayscale light output, Peak luminance, color, six ways from Sunday, including color, match HDR and gamut measurements. All that stuff I put into something called The Geek box at the end of the review. For all those measurements, you can compare one to the other and get a nice look at how the TV performs in all those parameters.
So, of course, for this video I have the lights on, so you can see everything, but to do it all correctly, I got ta turn out the lights. So, of course, in addition to all that picture, quality testing, we also talk about design, features, Smart TV capabilities for streaming and, of course, the remote because yeah every TV has a remote and I have a lot of remotes in the TV lab believe it or not. This wasn’t always a TV lab.
You had to make some modifications. These windows are blocked off almost perfectly light tight with those big heavy curtains. You see there.
We also painted the walls a nice, neutral gray, so that color doesn’t influence what we see on the screen. Finally, my favorite part this curtain right here closes all the way, so the combination of all that light control means I can test in complete darkness and with the lights on, to get a full picture of what the TVs look like more behind the scenes action. Let me show you the box closet, that’s right! These gigantic TVs come in gigantic boxes. These are all empty.
All the TVs are in the lab and, of course, we pack them right back into these boxes and send them off to the manufacturer when we’re done reviewing them. So that’s a quick look at what goes into a TV review here at CNET yeah a lot of data a lot of analysis, but the idea is to provide you with the best TV for your money. Now I’m going to get back to work and watch some TV .